Will economics textbooks change in next 30 years??

He points that there was a session in recently held World Economic Forum over state of economics textbook. Will it change post crisis? The depressing bit is that most econs feel there is no need for a change. Hope bit is Prof. Eichengreen feels it is due for a change and it will change. Like all technologies change overtime despite pessimistic expectations, same is the case with econ text-book as well.

One of the more interesting exercises in which I engaged at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos was a collective effort to imagine the contents of a Principles of Economics textbook in 2033. There was no dearth of ideas and topics, participants argued, that existing textbooks neglected, and that should receive more attention two decades from now.

Economists working on the border of economics and psychology, for example, argued that behavioral finance, in which human foibles are brought to bear to explain the failure of the so-called efficient markets hypothesis, would be given more prominence. Economic historians, meanwhile, argued that future textbooks would embed analysis of recent experience in the longer-term historical record. Among other things, this would allow economists-in-training to take the evolution of economic institutions more seriously.

Development economists, for their part, argued that much more attention would be paid to randomized trials and field experiments. Applied econometricians pointed to the growing importance of “big data” and to the likelihood that large data sets will have significantly enhanced our understanding of economic decision-making by 2033.

Overall, however, the picture was one in which the economics of 2033 differed only marginally from the economics of today. A textbook two decades from now might be more sophisticated than this year’s edition, fully integrating contributions that today constitute the frontiers of economic research. But it would not differ fundamentally in structure or approach from today’s economics.

The consensus, in other words, seemed to be that there would be nothing in the next 20 years as transformative as Alfred Marshall’s synthesis of the 1890’s or the revolution initiated by John Maynard Keynes in the 1930’s. In contrast to the economics of those years, economics today is a mature, well-established discipline. And, like any mature discipline, it advances incrementally rather than in revolutionary steps.

So most feel just incremental changes would be needed. This is depressing as clearly if one needs to include beh eco, it can’t be just a box or a chapter (the lenient ones may feature a chapter). It requires assimilation of important beh eco ideas which challenges/questions the mainstream ideas. This helps students understand different perspectives.

Though he hopes there are changes:

This presumption is almost certainly mistaken. It reflects the same error made by scholars of technology who argue that all of the radical breakthroughs have already been made. As this view is sometimes put, the next 20 years will see no breakthrough as revolutionary as the steam engine or the transistor. Technological progress will be incremental rather than revolutionary. Indeed, insofar as the increments are small, the result is likely to be slower productivity growth and a “Great Stagnation.”

In fact, the history of technology has repeatedly refuted this pessimistic view. We can’t say what the next radical innovation will be, but centuries of human experience suggest that there will be (at least) one.

Similarly, we can’t say what the next revolution in economic analysis will be, but more than a century of modern economic thinking suggests that there will be one.

All of this suggests that the economics textbook of 2033 will look very different from the economics textbook of today. We just can’t say how.

He points to certai tech changes which could change econ text-books:

Indeed, one might question the very premise that, two decades from now, there will be textbooks as we know them. Today, introductory economics is taught using a textbook in which an eminent professor authoritatively bestows the conventional wisdom on his or her (typically, his) students. Knowledge, as encapsulated in the textbook and interpreted by the professor, is delivered from above.

This, of course, is also how newspapers traditionally delivered the news. Editors and publishers assembled and collated stories, and the newspaper that they produced was then delivered to the subscriber’s doorstep. But the last decade has seen a veritable revolution in the news business. News is now assembled and disseminated via Web sites, wikis, and the comment sections of blogs. News, in other words, is increasingly delivered from the bottom up. Rather than relying on editors, everyone is becoming their own news curator.

Something similar is likely to happen to textbooks, especially in economics, where everyone has an opinion and first-hand experience with the subject. Textbooks will be like wikis, with faculty adopters and students modifying text and contributing content. There still may be a role for the author as gatekeeper; but the textbook will know longer be the font of wisdom, and its writer will no longer control the table of contents.

The outcome will be messy. But the economics profession will also become more diverse and dynamic – and our children’s economics will be healthier as a result.

Hmm. Interesting set of ideas. Will be really happy if contect from this blog is used to make text-books. Infact methods of teaching are already changing as shown in this wonderful paper.

Apart from the sources of material and methods of delivery of instruction, hope there are changes in actual content as well. There clearly is a need to make economics more holistic and give different perspectives to students.

One Response to “Will economics textbooks change in next 30 years??”

Textbooks are supposed to help students,teachers and profes-
sionals to learn economics as well as related topics such as
management,marketing,ans other social sciences.Some students
are asked to follow the basics,namely the principles courses,while
others are supposed to follow intermediate courses to help them
write their thesis.At a higher level,textbooks are not enough and
economic advisers are needed to help candidates in preparing
their PhD Dissertation.Reading textbooks is to be supplemented
with reading scholarly journals in economics and related fields,
such as psychology,sociology,and other applied behavioral
sciences.Textbooks written by the late Professor Paul Samuelson
in economics,or Peter F Drucker and Philip Kotler in Management
and Marketing are still very useful nowadays as when they were
first printed,decades ago.Emile Zola,a well known French writer
referred to three types of fiable sources of information,namely
the writings(books,journals),testimonies(inquiries)and observation.
John Maynard Keynes wrote “the General Theory”in 1936,yet,
Paul Samuelson considered such a book”a very badly written book,
after all,that is the work of a Genius.”One can’t help but reiterate
the definition of”economics,as science of thinking in terms of
models,joined to the art of using those models in solving contempo-
rary world problems.”Nobel Prizes in Economics were first awar-
ded in 1969,to Jan Tinbergen and Ragnar Frisch,and such a Prize
brought a lot controversy in 1979,as the theories presented by
the Nobel Laureates,the late Theodore Schultz and the late Sir
Arthur Lewis were opposite to each other.Scholars are supposed
to draw lessons from the past,so as to better understand the fu-
ture,as echoed by Emile Durkheim,the French sociologist.